Books

Aaron Neville's life of Funk, Faith & Fiyo on the Bayou

Aaron Neville's life of Funk, Faith & Fiyo on the Bayou

New Book Finally Gives the "Girls" of '60s Girl Groups Their Own Say

New Book Finally Gives the "Girls" of '60s Girl Groups Their Own Say

I support

Local

Community

Journalism

Support the independent voice of Houston and help keep the future of the Houston Press free.

A Long and Winding Journey Down Abbey Road

By Tom Richards
Aug 29, 2023

The Beatles and Abbey Road are inexorably linked. Not just because Abbey Road is the name of the last album the band recorded together, but also because the Fab Four recorded most of their catalog at the venerable London Studio during a period of eight years. As a result, the...
The High Times and Low Lights of Counterculture Icon Thomas King Forcade

By Bob Ruggiero
Aug 28, 2023

Tom Forçade wore a lot of hats in his lifetime—and not just the broad, flat-brimmed one he was usually sporting or photographed in. While he is best known as the founder of the pro-marijuana/counterculture magazine High Times, he was also, beginning in the late ‘60s, variously an editor, journalist, radical...
Celebrating Quadrophenia—The Who's "Other" Rock Opera

By Bob Ruggiero
Aug 16, 2023

It’s not the Who’s most famous rock opera—that would be the one about the deaf, dumb and blind kid with great flipper action, Tommy. Nor is it the great “What If?” never-assembled rock opera—that would be Lifehouse, most of which ended up on Who’s Next, considered the band’s greatest album...
Bob Dylan's "Blood"-y Minnesota Musicians Finally Get Their Flowers

By Bob Ruggiero
Aug 15, 2023

Among the passionate group of music aficionados known as the Dylanologists, consensus is that the Bard of Hibbing’s 1975 effort Blood on the Tracks is among his best, if not the best. And the general world tends to agree. The disc that produced such high-profile canon tracks like “Tangled Up...
New book Charts Eagles' Soaring Heights and Plummeting Crashes

By Bob Ruggiero
Aug 14, 2023

As esteemed rock journo Mick Wall writes in his introduction, Don Henley hates books about his band, Eagles (there is technically no definite article in the group’s name—so you’ve been saying it wrong all these years. See also: Talking Heads). He didn’t like Marc Eliot’s 2004 bio To the Limit:...
Book Gets to the Bottom of Beatles Legends, Lies and Offbeat Tales

By Bob Ruggiero
Aug 7, 2023

If a band’s been together for a decade, there are undoubtedly stories both true and exaggerated, offbeat legends and lies, and obscure or bizarre tales swirling around their history and music. If their popularity in the culture continues for decades after they hit their last note, those only grow. And...
Alan Paul's Allman Adventure Continues in the Family Way

By Bob Ruggiero
Jul 20, 2023

Late in 1972, the Allman Brothers Band found themselves at a crossroads—one with more ominousness and uncertainty than the one Robert Johnson went down to. A year earlier, they had lost Duane Allman, the group’s founder, leader and driving force in a freak motorcycle accident. Almost exactly one year after...
Book Spotlights Women the Stones Rolled With—and Sometimes Over

By Bob Ruggiero
Jul 10, 2023

In their music of the ’60s and ‘70s, the Rolling Stones weren’t exactly paragons for promoting gender equality and women’s issues. Songs like “Under My Thumb,” “Mother’s Little Helper,” “Stupid Girl,” “Brown Sugar,” “She’s So Cold” and “Bitch” were rife with misogyny and have not exactly aged well. Ironically, you’d...
The Mamas and the Papas' Book of Dreamin'

By Bob Ruggiero
Jun 26, 2023

The Mamas and the Papas were the epitome of California-based sunshine hippie pop and folk-rock, blending their voices to create two huge anthems of the ‘60s in “California Dreamin’” and “Monday, Monday.” They also had a string of other hits with “Creeque Alley,” “Dedicated to the One I Love,” “Words...
Mark Volman of the Turtles is Happy–Forever!

By Bob Ruggiero
Jun 9, 2023

He wasn’t the lead singer—that would be his lifelong partner in music and comedy, Howard Kaylan. He didn’t write any of his band’s many ‘60s hits like “Happy Together,” “It Ain’t Me Babe,” “Elenore,” “You Showed Me,” “You Baby,” “She’d Rather Be With Me,” or “She’s My Girl.” And he...
Geezer Butler's Lifetime of Sabbaths—and the Days of Metal In Between

By Bob Ruggiero
May 26, 2023

The song opens unlike anything else that had been heard in rock music to date. The sounds of a howling wind, drizzling rain, thunder, and then the slow, repetitive tolling of a bell. Just when you think it’s a Halloween sound effects record, instruments kick in—most prevalent the deep notes...
New Collection is a Fab Four Foto Fest

By Bob Ruggiero
May 23, 2023

It was July 1, 1963 and Terry O’Neill was just one of dozens of staff and freelance photographers who worked for the ultra-competitive “Fleet Street” newspapers in London. But he was also one of—if not the—youngest shutterbugs. So when his editor at the Daily Sketch asked him to head over...
New Book Details When Rock Bands Got the Boogie Fever

By Bob Ruggiero
May 2, 2023

Though it was a bit past its prime in terms of recruitment, in May 1979, the KISS Army was still a very fit and formidable fighting force. But Generals Stanley and Simmons were facing some serious AWOL and desertion in the ranks when the latest single from the costumed hard...
Opinion: All the Straight Porn I Was Exposed to In Houston Schools

By Jef Rouner
May 1, 2023

The ongoing fight over book bans in Texas public schools essentially boils down to two arguments. One, that liberal school boards want to teach children to hate America, specifically white America. Two, that inclusion of books about LGBT themes has gone so far that schools are carrying literal queer pornography...
Jeffrey Toobin Connects Timothy McVeigh, Guns, Militias and January 6

By Bob Ruggiero
Apr 27, 2023

Timothy McVeigh was obsessed with Waco. Obsessed. To him, the armed intervention led by the ATF and FBI on the religious compound of the Branch Davidian sect in late February 1993 (originally to serve a legitimate search warrant for guns) represented everything he hated passionately about the United States as...
Steely Dan's Rogues Gallery Holds a (Dysfunctional) Family Reunion

By Bob Ruggiero
Apr 13, 2023

Take the body of work of any Classic Rock band—or that of any other genre—and you’d be hard pressed to name a group with more characters of note than in the lyrics of Steely Dan. Dr. Wu. Mr. La Page, Hoops McCann. Deacon Blues. Buzz. Chino & Daddy Gee. Michael...
Jeff Guinn Writes of Waco's Loss and Legacy 30 Years On

By Bob Ruggiero
Apr 3, 2023

Anniversaries of big news events often bring about a flood of related media. This month’s 30th anniversary of the tragic end of the government raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco is no exception. There’s a six-hour Netflix documentary, Showtime’s rebroadcast of a 2018 miniseries with a new sequel...
Beasts of 42nd Street: Vintage Horror That Feels Timely

By Jef Rouner
Mar 21, 2023

In Preston Fassel’s new horror novel Beasts of 42nd Street, the setting may be 1977 New York, but its exploration of the corrosive nature of extremist content on the human soul resonates deeply here in the modern world of streaming. The novel follows Andy Lew, a heroin addict and film...
The Spacey Life and Tunes of Leon Russell

By Bob Ruggiero
Mar 6, 2023

Sometimes we tend to forget that even musical heroes have musical heroes. When Elton John came to these shores to play his first highly-anticipated run of shows at L.A.’s Troubadour Club in 1970, he was ecstatic to meet one of his: Leon Russell. Cut to nearly four decades later and...
Eddie Van Halen Chased Tones; Music Journalist Chased Eddie

By Tom Richards
Feb 20, 2023

In the media biz, you sometimes get to interview famous folks. You (ideally) have a pleasant conversation, shake hands, and say, “See you around campus,” or something to that effect. But you don’t hang out with them later. They don’t call you to say, “Hey, what’s going on?” They don’t...